The reader goes through several emotions while reading Sepia Leaves. There is anger, shock, surprise, love, and, of course, the quintessential hope. Sepia Leaves in the author's own words is "a book of hope".

Appu a young boy lives in Rourkela with his mother Manjeet and father Yashpal whom he calls Mamman and Baba. For the uninitiated, Rourkela is in Sundargarh District in western Orissa. One of the striking features of Rourkela is the Steel township developed by Rourkela Steel Plant with sectors and necessary facilities such as hospitals, schools, chemist, etc. The steel township is what you call Little India which you find when you travel abroad. There are people from all over the country and very few speak in the native language Oriya.

Appu's family lives in the steel township. The words dysfunctional family is used several times in the book and Appu's family is one. Manjeet, suffers from schizophrenia. In order to provide better care for his son, Yashpal hires a maid Mando. Manjeet, due to her illness, is forever imagining things around her -- that Yashpal is out to get rid of her, that she is the president of India. She is even suspicious that Mando and her husband are having an affair and thus Mando's entry into her home. Young Mando, in order to avoid aggravating domestic fights, tries to keep out of Manjeet's way while doing her chores.

Gradually, Mando takes up the role of a surrogate mother to Appu. However, this relationship doesn't last long and Appu is packed off to a boarding school. Yashpal doesn't really get along with Manjeet's folks, neither does Manjeet with Yashpal's extended family in Punjab. What this boils down to is that there is hardly anyone Appu can count on to take care of him. Fast forward to the present. Appu is well settled in Bangalore, is a software engineer and his ageing parents are living with him.

The memories of what Appu goes through all along his childhood flood back as Appu browses through old family albums on the morning Baba has passed away. He has informed Mamman about it and made the necessary long-distance calls. Guests trickle in to pay condolences. The book is written in parts. The present is Baba's death and Appu dealing with it. In between his chores are capsules of memories that flit in and out of Appu's head. The childhood, the pain, the stigma of living with "a mad woman" -- people whispering whenever they talk of Appu's family.

The journey of Appu's childhood and the unending saga of Yashpal's courage and patience with an ailing person in the family is what becomes Sepia Leaves. It is a battle for all the three of them. But only two of them have the ability to articulate it. While Yashpal devotes his time in writing odd notes and translations of ghazals, Appu resorts to writing a memoir. What strikes the reader is despite being a dense subject, there isn't a single word in the book that will make you scurry for a dictionary.

The book is categorised as fiction. But it is also a biography. Author Amandeep Sandhu went through what Appu did. "I am a mad woman's son," he says with equal amount of sarcasm and wit. "This is called a fiction because I have changed the timeline of the book," says Sandhu who is in his mid-30s now. Sepia Leaves is set in the 1970s, the era of Emergency and political turmoil in India. Sandhu is now getting this translated into Oriya and Kannada; and he is working on the Punjabi version.

Sanjitha Rao Chaini

sanjitha 'at' abp 'dot' in